Saturday, September 11, 2010

McCallum's kick sailed wide left, into the hands of Chad Owens, perhaps the most dangerous returner in the CFL. Owens picked his way through a broken field and then danced along the sidelines, only to touch the stripe at the Lions 35-yard line with the end zone ahead of him, eliminating the possibility of a go-ahead Argo touchdown.

“You want to talk about a resilient guy now, because I really bounced this kid around,” Tony Sparano said. “To be honest with you, early on in this process— probably not fair I would say from my end just in that within a span of probably 10 days this guy was a defensive lineman or a linebacker three or four times. One day he was a defensive lineman then we lost a player, then he became a linebacker, then I moved him back to defensive line and I was just kind of trying…..”

Sparano said he just liked the way Alama-Francis worked, and that he was physical.

“So, he had two really good qualities there. I just couldn’t find the right spot for him I thought he was a little bit of a tweener to be a defensive lineman,” Sparano said. “He maybe could help us in the rush a little bit, but he was a little bit small at the time. I asked him to gain weight he gained weight, I asked him to lose weight (and) he lost weight. So, finally I called him up one day and I actually called him on the phone and I said, ‘Listen, I we’re going to get this right one way or the other here and we’re going to move you to linebacker and I’m just going to leave you there right now and we’re going to watch this thing and we’re going to see whether or not this thing works. And to his credit, his answer has always been ‘Yes sir, whatever you need me to do coach I’ll do.’ And he did it and it’s been really good right now.”

“I’m rooting for that guy out there on Sunday,” Sparano said. “I really am rooting for the guy to do well.”